Concrete Briars
by Deep Space Cowgirl
Summary: When Izayoi Aki was thirteen, she ran away from a life of rejection and isolation. This was a mistake. Abandoned in Satelite to a fate worse than death, will she survive long enough to escape? AU
1. Chapter 1

Okay, this idea bit me about halfway through the Earthbound Gods arc, and refused to let go. So now, I'm going to torture all of you with it, too. Main pairing will be Yusei/Aki… if you want anything else, toss me a review and I will consider your suggestion.

Summary: When Izayoi Aki flees the condemnation of her teachers and peers at the Duel Academy, her homecoming shatters what little hope she still harbored of ever being accepted, anywhere. And then, to make matters worse, karma decides to throw its two cents in. And so, a thirteen-year-old girl awakens to a fate arguably worse than death... in Satellite. Will she live long enough to make it home?

Timeframe: This is starting about three years prior to the start of the series. As of now, I'm planning on writing to at least the end of the Fortune Cup, and probably to the end of the Earthbound Gods/Dark Signers arc. I have only watched this anime in the original Japanese (experience has taught me that Yu-Gi-Oh anime tends to be butchered in translation to make it more 'kid friendly' or 'more accessible to an American audience'.) I _abhor _censorship. That said…

Rating: This story has a Mature rating for a _reason, _and not just because of gratuitous swearing. There will be lots and lots of violence and some rather mature themes. _This is not recommended reading for innocent minds. _I trust you all to know your maturity level. That said, enjoy.

Concrete Briars 

_Prologue: Downward Spiral_

* * *

The multicolored wash of neon and harsh fluorescent light that banished the darkness of the typical Neo Domino night to a few isolated alleys and the docks was muted somewhat in Tops, where the rich paid a great deal of money for the illusion of peace and quiet. After half a night of walking and the nerve-wracking experience of traversing the city's subway network (something she was

_not _eager to repeat) the sudden silence was… unnerving. Foreboding, even. Delicate fingers hesitated over the touchpad which would manually open the mansion's front gate, twitching back and forth between the numbered display and the call button as she, once again, felt her nerve failing.

_Don't be stupid, Aki. If they'd really abandoned you, you'd never have gotten past the security at the first gate. Even if there were some awkward questions about why I was _here, _at _eleven-thirty at night, _instead of at the Duel Academy, where I'm supposed to be. And speaking of where I'm _supposed _to be… _She could punch the entry code, or use the intercom to summon one of the servants to let her in, but she should probably make up her mind soon. Because she _couldn't _go back to the Academy, not after what she'd done. Her instructors had made it _quite _clear that they would not tolerate any more of her classmates ending up in the infirmary after a duel with her. And what had she done, less than a week later? Brought down half the gym roof on that idiot Ken and his cronies. And _then _sent Ken's crying, revenge-driven little sister to join him in the infirmary. The headmaster had told her that they would wait until tomorrow to contact her parents and render a final judgment, but she'd seen the decision in his usually kindly eyes… she was too dangerous, too _monstrous_ to have around the other students. So, she'd committed two more expulsion-worthy offenses, and reclaimed her confiscated deck and duel disk before sneaking off the school grounds. She remembered the last time she'd been expelled for 'fighting', just two years ago, and the expression on her father's face when he had hit her. And also the horror and remorse, as he had stared from his hand to her prone, crying figure sprawled on the floor. _I… want to go home. That's all. I want to curl up in my own bedroom, under my own blankets. And yes, maybe I do want to be screamed at… they can't be afraid of me if they're willing to risk making me angry, can they? _Her fingers did _not _tremble as she punched the eight digit code and held her thumb in place for a fingerprint scan… but she _did _issue a small gasp of surprise as the gate swung noiselessly open.

_They… haven't changed the code. In _three months. _I can't imagine Papa's security was happy about that… Did he do it on purpose? So I would always be able to come home, if I needed to? _True, she had never gotten a single phone call or email when she was at the Academy, ever… and it was true that when she did come home during semester breaks, that the house was usually empty by the necessity of her parents' demanding social schedule and her father's duties as a senator… but…

Almost against her will, her feet dragged her to the front door as her left hand fished for the key, but a noise froze her in her tracks. _Laughter. At this hour? Who…?_

She noticed, absently, that there was light streaming from the living room window and found herself creeping toward it like an abandoned kitten. It was only the work of moments to get a view of the occupants of the room… her parents. Two glasses of red wine sat mostly empty on the mahogany table as they shared a joke. Her mother's eyes were alive with unguarded humor and the complete absence of worry lines on her forehead combined with the pinkness staining her cheeks took years off her age The tenseness had left her father's shoulders, his tie had been discarded and two of the buttons on his dress shirt had been undone in a display of informality that she had never seen him adopt. Furthermore, that air of distraction that always clouded his eyes when she was with him had vanished. The entirety of his attention was on her mother.

_They're… happy._ Tones of conversation rose and fell, and only the laughter seemed to reach out from behind the glass. _They get so little time to themselves… the minute I walk in there, I'll ruin that. And when I tell them why I'm here, it'll only be worse. _A noise somewhere between a whine and a whimper escaped from her lips… and even though it must have been too soft a sound for anyone inside the house to hear, her father looked over in her direction and started, nearly knocking over his wine as he lurched to his feet. "Aki!" she heard him call faintly from the other side of the glass as her mother turned to look at her, both of them shocked. And… annoyed. And soon to be angry.

It wasn't _fair._

…_**fuck **__this! _She snarled inside her head, the obscenity springing from memories of some of the crueler taunts the upperclassmen had thrown at her. She angrily pulled a card from the top of her deck, only stopping to register the green border of a magic card before she slammed the card home in the proper slot on her suddenly active duel disk. Her right arm throbbed and the hologram didn't materialize properly, but the pretty glass window shattered, raining razor-sharp shards on everyone as her mother screamed and she turned on her heel and fled.

"Aki!" her father bellowed at her back. "Izayoi Aki, you get back here at once!" But he didn't follow her. He wouldn't. Because her mother was probably hurt, probably bleeding, and that was more important than chasing after his _monster _of a daughter. _"AKI!"_

She ran.

* * *

By the time her senses cleared, she was already lost. She had no idea where she was; it wasn't Tops, or the area near the Academy, and none of the store names looked familiar. And even if she did know how to get back to the Academy from here, she was almost certainly expelled. And as for going back home…

_I attacked Mama. I've _never_ hurt her with my powers before. _And she knew, by doing that, she'd crossed a line. She'd never be forgiven now… she _couldn't _go back. And, to top it off, she had only a few hundred yen left in her pockets after an ill-spent early evening getting lost in the subway. She barely had enough money for a can of soda, let alone some sort of hotel room to spend the night in. _I know some of the upperclassmen sneak off campus at night and duel for money… but I doubt anyone would be willing to risk being blown through a wall or buried under a pile of rubble for a measly five hundred yen. And where would I find a gambling hall that would let a kid like me in, anyway? _She could feel eyes clinging to her uniform, wondering what a child was doing out at this hour of the night. _I guess I'll need new clothes, too. _Her stomach cheerfully chimed in, reminding her that she'd skipped dinner for this disastrous misadventure. _And something to eat. Which brings me back to the problem of money, and how I can get some legally. Or… maybe _extra_-legally._ Which left her with two options: stealing, and… the sorts of things that girls from nice families like hers weren't supposed to know anything about. The later was repellant for obvious reasons, while the former would probably involve busting things up with her duel disk, since she didn't know the first thing about picking locks or pockets. And the tiny detail of _holograms coming to life _would probably get her caught pretty quickly.

Tears started to prick at the corner of her eyes. _Is there _any _way for me to do this? _She sat – or maybe collapsed – on a nearby bench. Her feet were sore, her eyes stung from holding back tears, her arm was throbbing…

_Wait. _She quickly pushed back her jacket and sleeve to bare the claw-shaped birthmark seared on her arm. It looked somewhat redder than usual, but it wasn't glowing. _Thank God, finally a little bit of luck. _Whenever that mark started to glow, the usual chaos around her tended to go up from bruises to property damage. She _still _didn't know of the mark was some sort of indicator that her powers were surging, or an amplifier, only that the two of them were linked. The mark had only appeared _after _she'd almost set her father on fire, the first time she'd used her powers.

The first time she'd been called a _monster._

Her fingernails bit into crimson lines, almost hard enough to draw blood. Sometimes she wondered if destroying the mark would get rid of her powers. She'd set out to try, once, knife and all. Her mother had caught her before she started cutting, however, and made her promise to never, _ever _hurt herself for any reason, and that was one promise she'd been able to keep. _But… I'm alone now. If I didn't have these powers, could I go back? Would it be worth it to try?_

"Well, well, well… look what we have here. This is the last place I'd expect to find you, _Aki-chan,_" a vaguely familiar voice sneered. Before she could even turn around, someone hit her head, hard, knocking her off the bench onto the sidewalk in a cascade of illusory neon-green sparks. "I guess you really did get expelled. Did you want to go someplace where no-one would know you so you could mope in peace, or did you get lost while running back to Daddy?" She managed to crawl to her knees and look up long enough to register a boy's Duel Academy uniform and a mop of untidy green hair before someone else kicked her in the ribs. The force of the blow brought her down again, this time on her back and gasping

"It's lucky we found you," added another boy as he flicked red-dyed bangs out of his eyes. "This isn't the best part of town. You might have hurt someone." He stomped on her arm hard enough to make her scream, pinning her duel disk to the ground and effectively sealing her only means of defending herself. "We are, after all, your senpai." _Crap. Are they _more _of Ken's little toadies? _She wondered as a surge of terror flashed through the pain.

"_Former_ senpai," reminded a third thug that she couldn't see as he spat at her face.

"Yes, well she's still in uniform. So her actions still reflect on the reputation of the school… and I hardly want people to mistake _me _for some sort of witch-thing just because of you, Izayoi. And it _is _our responsibility to make sure that you behave yourself in a manner that doesn't tarnish the Academy's reputation," Red-stripe explained, stomping on her other arm as she tried to move it towards the foot pinning her down.

"I doubt… you care about… the school's _reputation_," she gasped. _I think I'm going to die._

"Well… no, not really," Green-head admitted as his friends laughed. "Aside from the whole not wanting to be a freak by association bit. Mostly, we're just pissed. You almost killed Ken, and a bunch of our friends with that little stunt in the gym this afternoon. Then, you go after Kasumi, and what the hell did she ever do to you? Breathe in your general direction?" he sneered. "Not to mention all the other people you've hurt over the past two years. And everyone's too scared of your daddy the senator to even punish you until you almost murder half the senior class." He stomped on the left side of her chest, hard, driving out the breath she would have needed to scream.. "And then, we sneak off campus to blow off some steam, and what do we find? The Princess herself, all alone and dead to the world. Opportunity knocks and all that."

"If… you're going to… kill me… then get it over with already," she managed to choke out. "Better than… listening to… your ranting…"

"_You _don't get any say in the matter," a fourth voice sneered. Another foot was suddenly looming in her face before it was knocked aside.

"Oi, oi, oi! No permanent damage!" Green-head declared.

"Hey, I thought we were going to _burn _this witch!" Red-stripe protested.

"Well, we're certainly not going to do that now that you shouted it in front of at least thirty witnesses!" Green-head hissed. "_I'm_ not planning on going to jail over this bitch. Besides, I had a better idea just now. Remember that little… problem… we have with the heavies at the Seven Star? _I _just figured out how to fix it."

Pain, and then oblivion.

* * *

"…you think? Young, pretty, and I can guarantee that the parents won't miss her. She's already run away. Little girls do that all the time and are never seen or heard from again." The voice was loud, grating on her aching skull, but she couldn't move her hands to rub the lancing pains on the back and side of her skull, and even through the pain, the thought of making a noise filled her with terror.

"I don't know kid. Living commodities prettily heavily frowned on by Security, if you know what I mean. _You _and your little buddies are the ones who owe me _eight hundred thousand yen_. Why should I stick my neck out for you? And let's not forget that the merchandise is damaged."

"We didn't do anything that'll leave scars."

"I'm more worried about the concussion, which will leave a corpse if we're unlucky. And do excuse me if I don't put too much faith in your _luck, _brat. You were trying to convince me that I should risk being marked and tossed into Satellite so I can break even on _your_ debt. _If _I break even."

"Because you're _already _doing this sort of thing, for one."

"…you don't have any proof."

"I have _ears. _And secondly, how else are you planning on getting your money back? My father's _in _Security. So yeah, you could shake him down, and _yeah, _he'll probably beat me black and blue, but what do you think is going to happen to you once you go down that road? I could probably draw you up a list of charges as long as my arm for just the stuff I've seen when I come here to duel. Satellite will be the _least_ of your worries. I guess you could try just going after the other guys, but when you go to their parents they'll squeal on everyone involved to spread the blame around. And you _still _get my father pissed at you. Third… what's this breaking even bullshit? Sell her to the right people, you could end up ahead. _Well _ahead."

"Or, I could put a bullet in your brain for being a cocky little brat."

A pause. "You could. But I think we both know why that's a bad idea, don't we?"

Coarse laughter. "If you weren't such an arrogant piece of shit, I might be tempted to offer you a job. Just so happens I have a _shipment _taking a hop across the pond to hell tonight. We'll see what my associate's willing to offer me for the magenta-haired wench, and how far that'll go to settling this little… misunderstanding between the two of us." Another pause. "What did she do to piss you off this much, anyway?"

"Let's just say the arrogant bitch had it coming." Someone picked her up and swung her… some way. Her injuries protested the violent motion, and the surge of pain obliterated her consciousness once again.

* * *

According to the currency converter I found, eight hundred thousand yen equals about nine thousand, seven hundred dollars. Figure we have at least four people, and the green-haired teen's trying to settle for his buddies at the same time… I can see them managing to rack up that much debt, especially at the sort of place seedy enough to let minors gamble.

I blame this prologue on too many episodes of Law and Order, especially SVU.

And yeah… I think I'm going to leave things there. You know you love to hate me_._

_Feed Me? _


	2. Chapter 2

All your lovely reviews (And the Criminal Minds marathon I watched last night) have given me the inspiration I needed to finish this, so here it is! The next chapter, in all it's glory! Enjoy!

* * *

_First Chapter: Rock Bottom_

The first thing Aki became aware of was scent of roses, so strong that for a moment she thought she'd fallen asleep in the garden back home. A hand was gently stroking her hair, fingers combing through magenta locks and deftly picking out tangles. The ground was hard, but her head was pillowed on someone's lap, which was good because it ached _horribly. _It was only when a hand gently stroked her cheek – a hand too callused to be her mother's – that the memory of what had happened to her aching skull came back in and she bolted upright with a scream. A scream that she instantly regretted as it bounced off the walls of the space they were enclosed in and reminded her head that it currently _hated _her with a migraine-y passion. _Probably metal, _her brain decided judging by the feeling of cold, smooth floor pressing against her bare legs. Wherever she and the mystery person had been trapped, it was a lightless hole. _Oh god, they tossed me into some hole in a basement somewhere to die—_

"I'm glad you're awake," a voice, a _child's _voice, said from somewhere in the gloom. "Your head was bleeding, and you didn't move for the longest time… people can die like that, sometimes. I didn't want to be left alone in here with a dead body." The relief in the kid's voice was almost tangible, and almost enough to crowd out that sliver of fear. "I'm Rally, by the way."

"…Aki. Izayoi Aki," she murmured, rubbing the side of her head where she found something… _crusty…_ to go with the pain. Remembering the kid's – Rally's – words from earlier added an additional edge to her wince. _I wonder if I need stitches… I wonder if I'll be able to get somewhere to _get _stitches. _"Do you have any idea where we are?"

"Exactly? No. But we're on a ship. One of the ones that brings scrap from the City to Satellite. Except this one… kinda has a bigger definition of 'scrap' than most people would think. That low humming sound you can hear is the engine." Rally's voice became even softer "We're near the bottom of the boat, as far as I could tell. I thought I could hear some other sounds coming from some of the rooms nearby before they tossed me in here, so there might be more of us. I don't know." And if that wasn't the beginning of a sob in the kid's voice, Aki would eat her duel disk. _If I _had_ my duel disk, _she amended as she realized, with a thrill of alarm, that her left arm was considerably lighter than it should be. A quick pat-down of her jacket revealed that her deck was gone too. _I am going to-! No, Aki, calm down… you can't snap now, this kid doesn't deserve it._ Especially when she knew that she was trying to _make _herself angry, because otherwise she would be terrified out of her mind. Without her deck, she couldn't use her powers. And without her powers, she was a scrawny teenager whose best asset in a fight was running away. _Not that I think I'll be doing much of that for a while, _she noted, gingerly massaging her ribs where one of her attackers had kicked her and wondering, idly, if any of them were broken. She could breathe okay, though, so probably not. _…maybe I should have paid more attention in Health. Especially when we did the first-aid unit._

"So… the ship is moving, I take it?" she asked, if only to break herself out of the bleak turn her thoughts had taken. "Do you know where we're going… oh." Bits of memory from a conversation that she had thought was a nightmare started to filter in. "Oh, no." Her arm started to throb, started to _glow. _"If I _ever _get out of this, I will hunt those bigoted, arrogant seniors down and show them exactly how _monstrous _I can be!"

"Ah, Aki-san… is your arm supposed to do that?" Rally asked, pale eyes wide, their color impossible to determine in the faint red glow emanating from the claw-shaped birthmark on her arm. That empty, shocked expression was like a bucket of cold water on her temper, and it snuffed out the glow from the accursed mark immediately.

"…sorry…" she mumbled into the silence.

"…it's okay. Could you um, maybe turn it back on or whatever? It was nice to have some light in here."

"It's not something I can control," Aki admitted, knowing that her cheeks were burning with humiliation. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Okay. I understand all about having embarrassing tattoos that you don't want to talk about," Rally replied in a tone of voice that Aki noticed was trying to be sympathetic. She stomped on the impulse to snap, because after all, how could anyone understand the pain, the _isolation _that this damned birthmark had brought her? _Rally's just a little girl, and probably scared out of her mind, _she reminded herself. _And she's willing to ignore my weirdness, which puts her ahead of… oh, almost everyone I've ever met. Besides, we're both enclosed in a dark space, with only each other for company._ "But can we talk about _something?_ I have no idea how long I've been in here… I don't want to have to think about it anymore!"

Noting the desperation in Rally's voice, Aki cast around for a topic that wouldn't be depressing. "Um… do you duel?"

"Some. I'm not very good… we didn't exactly have a lot of money left over for cards, especially after Mom died. A lot of my cards were pity presents from some of the older girls on the block, but they stopped me from losing _every _time I dueled, so I didn't mind too much."

"…you wouldn't happen to have your deck with you, would you?" she asked, hoping she didn't sound too eager. She'd never actually _tried _to use her powers, and she had no idea if they would work without a duel disk, but she was more than willing to try.

"No. When I wasn't using it I usually hid it in with my underwear, just in case Dad ran out of money for his precious bottles and decided to sell something else. That was the one place he'd never go. I wish I could have hidden _me_ in there; maybe I wouldn't be in this mess."

…_I did _not _hear that right. _"You're… not saying that your _father _is the one who…"

"It's not his fault!" Rally protested. "Not really, anyway. My mom was sick, _really _sick, and then she… died. And Dad got stuck with all the bills from the hospital, and we had to move down to the docks, and… everything just kind of went from bad to worse. It was too much for him to deal with by himself, and everything I did to try and help just made things worse. When _they _showed up, saying they had work a kid could do and that they didn't mind my Marker… he didn't ask too many questions. Especially when they paid him up front, and promised more once I'd 'worked off the starting debt'. He _never _would have sent me away if he knew the truth!"

_("It's horrible at the Academy, I hate it there! Every day, every time I duel, somebody gets hurt! And everyone just _whispers _and _stares _at me… Papa, please don't make me stay!") _How old had she been the first time she'd had that argument with her parents? Nine? Ten? She'd never been able to get through. Her father was so convinced that being at the Academy, where she would have to duel every day, would give her the incentive to find some sort of miraculous way to get her 'little problem' under control that he'd ignored any and all protests, to the point of _forbidding _her to complain. "Rally…"

"He _wouldn't,_" Rally insisted, and by her tone it seemed clear to Aki that she felt the topic of discussion was closed. "I _do_ have one card… One-Shot Booster. It was the rare card in the first pack that Mom bought for me. I'd show you, but, well… kinda impossible to see in here."

"My deck was a gift from my parents, too. It had a focus on Plant-type monsters," Aki pitched in, allowing Rally to change the subject, and filing the information away for later.

"Really? That's pretty cool… I wanted to build a Machine-type deck, but, well… never quite had enough cards to pull it off. Do you have a favorite card?"

"Yeah, Black Garden. It's a Field Magic card… I use it to set up a lot of my combos," Aki found herself admitting. Oh, people had _tried _to talk to her at the Academy… if they were fishing for weaknesses in her deck, or looking for someone's notes to piggyback that night's Practical Application paper off of. The last time she'd had a real conversation about Duel Monsters with anyone was…

_("So, Aki-chan… if you were in a store, picking out Duel Monster cards for your deck… what kind of monsters would you want?"_

"_Plant monsters! Pretty, flower plant monsters! But anything would be okay, really… if you remember your promise to play with me once I get my deck. You will remember, won't you Papa?")_

Aki shook her head violently to clear it of one of her last happy memories with her father. And then had to suppress a hiss of pain as her nerves reminded her, once again, that she'd been hit twice on the head the last time she'd been fully conscious. _Was that yesterday? The day before yesterday? Or is it still Tuesday?_ "I guess my favorite monster would be the Phoenician Cluster Amaryllis. If I ever see my deck, again, anyway." _One of those seniors probably took it before they dumped me here. _A surge of hate for that group of boys burned inside her, and she promised herself once again that if she ever made it back to the City that she would _find _them.

"We'll get it back," Rally tried to reassure her. "I'm pretty good at… getting things."

"I don't even know where it is," Aki sighed.

"Um… well you see… hey, does the engine sound different to you?"

"Hmm…" Aki lapsed into silence and cocked her head. Yes, the background vibrations seemed to be… tapering off, maybe? "I think you're right."

"So we've reached Satellite," Rally murmured, almost too softly to be heard. Aki reached out through the darkness, and her hand found what was probably a shoulder. The girl was trembling.

_Satellite…_

She could remember nights, when one of her duels had gone particularly badly, when she would lie awake in her bed and wonder if this would be the time when she'd finally exhausted everyone's patience, when her father would finally be through with protecting her to protect his reputation and career, and she'd be thrown away somewhere so she couldn't hurt normal people anymore. Some of her classmates loved to trade horror stories of the sorts of things rumor and the tabloids claimed happened on that abandoned strip of earth. Satellite had always been the poorest part of Neo Domino City, but when it had been broken off from the mainland during the disaster fourteen years ago, it had become a prison without walls, someplace where the undesirable elements of society were dumped so that they wouldn't bother decent people, while providing an endless supply of cheap labor for some of the nastiest, most thankless jobs imaginable. Satellite was Neo Domino City's garbage dump in every sense of the term. And, according to her gossipy classmates (who would then pause, and give her a significant look from the corners of their eyes, usually complete with a smug little smile) it was a breeding ground for all sorts of crime. Untaxed gambling, drugs, prostitution. If you wanted it, and you had the money, the grimy gray sky was the limit.

_("Wouldn't it just be _horrible_ to be trapped in that filthy hole? I'm glad I always follow the rules… unlike _some _people I could mention. I don't have a rich, well-connected family willing to bribe me out of prison, so I have to do my best to be good… must be nice to be so blessed, right Izayoi? What with your so-called 'condition' and all…")_

"We need to stick together, if we can. It'll be harder to escape alone," Aki found herself saying as her hand tightened on Rally's shoulder. Because… this wasn't right. It wasn't _fair. _Nothing she had done had been bad enough to deserve this, and Rally, from the sound of it, deserved this even _less._

"…are you serious?" Rally asked, sounding both horrified and hopeful. "These guys are _scary._ The big one with his face covered in Markers said he'd snap me in half like a toothpick if I tried to run. He wasn't kidding."

"I'm always serious," Aki replied. "And make sure you hold on to that card."

"Well, I wasn't exactly planning on letting them _take _it, but why…" The shriek of rusted hinges being forced open, and the sudden flood of light cut off the question.

"Well, well, well… it looks like the little rosebud survived after all," A female – female! – voice sneered. The smell of roses intensified, and Aki realized that it must be the woman's perfume, adding yet another level of _wrongness _to the situation. The sorts of people running this sort of thing… they were supposed to be _men. _Fat, ugly men with pudgy, dirty fingers and half their teeth missing. (And a stick to hit the girls with, she remembered that particularly nasty group of girls had been fairly clear about that.) They weren't supposed to be _women. _Girls just didn't _do _this sort of thing to other girls. Nasty comments, cruel pranks, ruined knickknacks and clothes, if you had the misfortune to live with them or have your room's keycard duplicated… they weren't supposed to do things like _this._ And they sure as hell weren't supposed to smell like her _mother _while they did it.

_Head in the game, Izayoi. _Because if she thought of this as just another duel, just another opponent, maybe she wouldn't panic. "You don't sound too terribly concerned," Aki ground out as she scrambled to her feet, trying to blink the water out of her eyes as they adjusted to the rapid change of light. She could make out a female figure standing right in front of the door, along with a second hulking presence standing behind her - a bodyguard, perhaps? The woman probably wasn't much taller than she was, but bright red stiletto heels added three, maybe four inches to her height. Her blond hair fell in precisely-styled waves, and her clothing, from the cream silk blouse and the form-fitting black silk slacks to the sleek, stylized pink duel disk strapped to her arm practically screamed wealth. The abundance of gold chains that almost covered the considerable exposed by the fact that said silk blouse was unbuttoned halfway down her front screamed the fact that she didn't want anyone to miss that wealth, either.

"Oh, but I am. If there's one thing that vexes me, it's wasted money," the woman replied with a smirk that told Aki that she _knew_ the younger girl had been trying to size her up. "And I see the little scrapper is as sprightly as ever. Do try not to bite Bryce again, dear, he might forget himself and put some scars on that lithe little body of yours. The Marker's bad enough… ruins that fresh, helpless look that certain portions of my clientele love so very, very much…"

"Why do you keep talking about me like that… I'm a _boy _you evil-!" Rally shouted, but was immediately taken down screaming as the woman pulled something out of her handbag and fired it at him.

"Really now, if you don't want to be mistaken for a girl, why the dress and the crappy plastic jewelry?" the woman asked, her sneer twisting her face into something monstrous. "Honestly, it's people like you that almost make me believe in fate." A twitch of her finger, and another surge of electricity ran through the writhing little figure on the floor.

_Tazer. Oh god... _"Stop it! She-I mean, _he's_ just a little kid—why are you doing this to us, anyway?"

"_Why_ am I doing this?" the woman asked, amused, as she pressed another button and retracted the stun gun's hooks. "Only a spoiled little city brat would have to ask me _that. _Don't worry, he's not dead. You're not even unconscious, are you my little scraper? The voltage isn't high enough to render even a little slip of a thing like you unconscious. You'd never learn anything if you blacked out before I could teach you, now would you?"

"You… bitch…" Rally gasped as he tried to get his legs back underneath him.

"Tsk, tsk, such vile language for a child! But I'll let it pass this once, little scrapper… trash is trash, after all. It'll take some time to pretty you up enough to cover the stink," she sneered, pulling a bottle of something out of her purse and spraying Rally with it. The smell of roses in the little space became almost overpowering, and Aki realized that it was a bottle of perfume.

"You…" Aki made herself shut up, as the woman's stance shifted. Her eyes, that _smile…_ she'd seen their like before, usually on the faces of the girls back at the Academy when they could tell that one of their cutting comments had struck home. She was _enjoying _this. "You don't deserve to wear a duel disk." Sprang from her lips before she could stop the words from coming out.

"Oh? And what business is it of yours, girl?" the woman asked, stalking closer. "I may be refraining from injuring you to avoid exacerbating your concussion, but do not forget that I _own _you now… just like I own this." She brought the duel disk up, as if she were examining it, and as it caught the light from the hallway the contours of the disk went from _familiar_ to something she should know like shape of her own shadow.

"That's-!"

"Mine. And you'll remember it, unless you want me to get… creative, with disciplining you. What do you have left to lose, after all? These ridiculous bangs of yours? The shirt off your back, perhaps? Or maybe you would enjoy spending the rest of the time from this ship to my compound bound and blindfolded. I am sure that would be quite pleasant after spending so much time in this dark little cell."

"I… understand," she murmured, hating having to submit to this… creature, but knowing that she had better chances of escaping if she stayed mobile. _Avoid traps, defend against the eight-star monster with the godawful special effect, and wait for the card that will turn this around. Just another duel… would she really make me walk around in my underwear? _She had a horrible feeling that the answer was _yes, _and it stained her cheeks bright red.

"I had a feeling you'd understand quickly," the woman congratulated her with an approving nod, and a pat to the head that made her face feel like it was on _fire._ In that instant, Aki had an epiphany: she truly, honestly wanted to kill this woman.

_Later, _she promised herself, struggling to keep her the rage off of her face.

"And the biting brat, Miss Katherine?" grumbled the man in the hall, the first thing he'd said throughout the entire exchange.

"If he wants to act like an animal, he can be muzzled like one," the woman said dismissively. "I'll leave it to your judgment."

"Like… hell!" Rally gasped, lurching to his feet and stumbling in the general direction of their tormentor. With a snort of purest contempt, she simply stepped to the side and allowed gravity to bring the flailing boy down again. Instinct sent Aki darting forward just in time to catch him. "Let me go, Aki-san!"

"Hush, Rally. You can't win… not now, anyway," she soothed, adding the last part in a whisper that she hoped was low enough not to be overheard.

"Can't win at _all,_" Rally whispered, burying his head in her neck. "Not gonna live like this...!"

"Don't think like that. Duelists don't give up," Aki told him. _I will _not _let Rally give up. I… I don't want to give up on the _possibility_ that I might not have to do this by myself._

"Break it up, you two," grunted the muscle man as he physically separated them. "You can walk on your own, or…"

"We'll walk," Aki answered for both of them, noting that the woman, Katherine, had already disappeared somewhere else. _Should I be relieved that she's gone, or insulted that we're not worth enough of her time to fire off a parting insult or two?_

"Keh. _Both _of you better keep your teeth to yourselves, or I think I _will _drag the two of you naked to the compound. Now… hands," he instructed as he started uncoiling a length of rope from his belt.

Aki blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"You think I trust the two that the two of you have the brains not to run away? Not that it would do you any good. Here, you won't find too many people willing to take in a useless kid… especially you, brat. You've already been collared by Security, which makes you both a troublemaker _and_ too stupid or slow to get away, as far as these people are concerned. So… _hands,_" he repeated. Rally glared something murderous, but even he realized that it was better to keep his mouth shut as he thrust his hands out in front of him abruptly enough that Aki almost thought he'd tried to punch their captor, despite the fact that the man was easily three times Rally's size. The thug must have noticed it too, because he tied Rally's hands a good deal tighter than Aki thought was necessary. Her suspicions were confirmed when he moved on to her own wrists. While the ropes were too snug for her to slip out of, she didn't feel any of the pain that Rally hadn't quite been able to keep off his face. "Okay, now keep up, brats. Sooner we get off this piece of floating scrap metal…" he grumbled as he tugged the lead rope they'd both been tied to, dragging them out of their cell and off into the unknown.

* * *

AN: Y'know, I feel a bit stupid for not realizing this earlier… but I finally figured out that Aki's dub name, Akiza, is kinda a mishmash of her first and last name in the original. Which leaves me to wonder… is all of the pain 4Kids puts us through with their crappy translations really born solely from the need to make things more 'kid friendly'? Or is some of it simply the result of hiring translators that have no idea what they're doing? (Because really, if they wanted to Americanize the name, why not go with Alice, or Alisa, or even Acacia? The last one's not nearly as common, but it's also, if I recall correctly, a type of tree, hence going with the 'plant' theme of Aki's deck. Akiza doesn't even really sound like a _name_, IMO.) Sorry, I am a dork, but…. Ugh, it just drives me bonkers! (headdesk)

Sorry about the tangent. About the chapter… I was always planning on Rally ending up in this mess with Aki, mostly to give Yusei and the rest of Team Satisfaction a reason to be in the right place at the right time… but my muse decided to take another bit of cannon and throw it out the window. Gleefully, at that… you should be grateful you can't hear her cackling madly in the background. Guess now I'll have to think of another way for the boys to get involved. (Yup, that's right, Kiryu's still in the picture. According to my timeline, there should be at least another six to nine months before things with the team go nuclear.)

Questions? Criticism? Desire to burn Katherine at the stake? Leave me a review and let me know!


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